Remembering “Bewitched” on its 50th Anniversay

I remember when I was very young, one of my favorite television shows that I just could not miss was “Bewitched”. I loved all things magical as a child and I was constantly practicing Samantha’s nose twitch to see if I could turn my older sister and baby brother into birds that would fly away. It never worked but the magic of “Bewitched” stays with me to this day.

The inspiration for the series comes from two early films, which also happen to be favorites of mine (surprise!), “I Married a Witch” and “Bell, Book & Candle”. “I Married a Witch” was a 1040’s film starring Veronica Lake and Fredric March. Lake played a witch who, after being betrayed by her lover, Master Wooley, curses him and his descendants in affairs of the heart as she and her father are burned at the stake. Centuries later they return to find Wallace Wooley (March) once again, and Lake prepares a love potion for him so she could have her revenge, but mistakenly drinks it herself and  the rest is hilarity.

In “Bell, Book & Candle”, Kim Novak is a witch who falls for her neighbor, played by the excellent Jimmy Stewart. She concocts a love spell to make Shep (Stewart) fall in love with her, just for kicks, but things backfire when she falls for him for real.

“Bewitched” took the best of both of those stories and combined them into a weekly sit-com that lasted for 8 seasons. Over the years, Samantha and Darrin had to deal with her meddling mother, Endora, while trying to keep the secret of her witchiness from Darrin’s boss, Mr. Larry Tate. Samantha gave birth to first Tabatha, who inherited her mother’s tricks, and later Adam, who began to show signs of being a little warlock by the series’ end.

Erin Murphy, Tabitha Stevens on “Bewitched”

Erin Murphy, who played little Tabitha on the show, started out as a tiny two-year old, but she remembers the experience very well. “I was about 2 years old when I started on Bewitched in 1966. The show debuted in 1964, but my character started in Episode 1 of Season 3, and I remained on the show until I was 8.”

“Each episode took a week to shoot and produce. On Mondays, the cast would all sit around a big table and read the script out loud with the writers and directors present. Then every day of the week we’d shoot different scenes. It was a long, full week. We had the weekend off—and on Monday we would do it all over again.”

Erin talked about working with Agnes Moorehead: “My favorite was Agnes Moorehead . She was nothing like people may think. Everyone thought she would be scary to me, but she wasn’t scary at all. To me she was like a grandma. I loved visiting her dressing room, which was all purple. She was smart and funny and she would draw me little cartoons. I just loved her so much. She was such a colorful and amazing person.”

“Bewitched” can still be seen in syndication on various cable channels.

(Quotes from the Erin Murphy interview are used courtesy of Reminisce.com.)